Many thanks to PET

IDS Borjomi International is one of the biggest mineral water vendors in the CIS nations and the Baltic states, and the market leader for natural mineral water. The group includes IDS Borjomi Georgia, the IDS Group Ukraine, IDS Borjomi Russia, IDS Borjomi Azerbaijan, IDS Borjomi Belarus and IDS Borjomi Europe in Lithuania. IDS operates bottling plants in Georgia, the Ukraine and Russia. The starting point for the mineral water conglomerate was the take-over of Georgian mineral water producer Borjomi in 2002 by the former trading company IDS. Since then, the group’s sales have soared by an annual average of 30%.

In 2003, IDS purchased the Ukrainian mineral water producer Mirgorod, and in 2004 Morshyn, each of them with the associated logistics chain, plus the mineral water firm in nearby Truskavets. In 2006, IDS made some investments in Russia by taking over the Lipetsk mineral water plant and in 2009 the Nestlé company Kostroma. Since then, Nestlé has also held a stake in IDS Borjomi International. In 2010, IDS Borjomi International sold around 746 million litres of mineral water. In Russia and the Baltic states, IDS Borjomi International’s market share has meanwhile exceeded 10%.

In the Ukraine, the IDS Group is a whole lot further on: the market share here for bottled mineral water is running at 42%. The three bottling plants in Morshyn, Mirgorod and Truskavets filled around 500 million bottles in 2012, 15% more than in the previous year. For 2013, the IDS Group Ukraine is predicting sales to rise by another 10%, to 550 million bottles.

Following the take-over by the IDS Group Ukraine, the plant channelled investment into modern bottling technology, and starting in 2005 built a new production hall. After the sister facility in Mirgorod had installed, in 2005, its first complete line from Krones, for filling PET containers with very good results, the IDS Group Ukraine once again put its trust in Krones’ technology, and commissioned three PET lines, one for the years 2007, 2009, and 2011.

The first line, rated at 18,000 containers an hour, and the second line, for 26,000 containers an hour, were pretty much identical: for producing the PET bottles, each of them features a Contiform (S14 and S18 respectively), which is linked up by AirCo conveyors to a monobloc comprising a Variojet rinser and a Volumetic filler with a Checkmat fill level inspector. A Contiroll and a Contiroll HS respectively then dress the containers in wrap-around film labels. An additional Autocol station is able to apply a product description in the national language for purposes of export.

A Variopac (and in the more recent line a Variopac Pro) assembles the end-of-the-line packages, which are fitted with a handle and then palletised. On the first, smaller line, this is done by a Pressant palletiser with a low-level infeed, whilst the second, 26,000-bph line features a Pressant with a high-level infeed and a shutter-type gripper head. These two lines are used for the entire product range: they handle 0.33L, 0.5L, 0.75L, 1.0L and 1.5L containers with flat or petaloid bases, and fill them with still water, slightly carbonated and highly carbonated water.

By 2010, the IDS Group Ukraine had to upsize its bottling capacities. They turned once again to Krones. “The decision as to whether we should choose conventional PET container production again, with a separate blow-moulding machine and an air conveyor to the filler, or the new blow-moulder/filler monobloc technology, was quite a tough one to call,” explains technical director Datskiv Andrii. “What we were worried about was that too many preforms and closures might be lost during a machine standstill. We did, of course,Air Foamposite One